Both coaches in this year’s Super Bowl are seeking their first pro championship.
Seattle Seahawks’ coach Pete Carroll, in his first Super Bowl, hopes to join Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win both college and pro football championships.
Denver Broncos’ coach, John Fox
lost in his only previous Super Bowl when he coached the Carolina Panthers. The New England Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick, won that Super Bowl game by three points.
In this year’s AFC Championship game Fox’s Broncos defeated the Patriots and their coach Bill Belichick.
I think both men are fine coaches who take chances. Carroll’s decision to go for it and not attempt a field goal in a 4th and 7 situation in the NFC Championship game, was a great example of such coaching decisions.
John Fox
Pete Carroll
One of my favorite Super Bowl games was #5, played in January 1971. In the game, the Baltimore Colts edged the Dallas Cowboys on Jim O’ Brien’s last second field goal.
The Colts had opened that season with a win against the San Diego Chargers, also on a last minute O’Brien field goal.
The 5th Super Bowl was considered a comedy of errors by some, a hard hitting thriller between two teams stocked with future Hall of Famers, by ones who know better.
Ted Moore had been the radio announcer for the Green Bay Packers championship run during the 1960’s. Two of the great Green Bay wins were vs Dallas, consequently were also heartbreaking Cowboys’ losses.
By the time of Super Bowl 5, Moore, another great announcer from the past, was the voice of the Baltimore Colts.
I remember being surprised at this coincidence when I bought the Colts’ record album from Fleetwood Recording Company.
That Super Bowl provides great memories of Colts like John Unitas, Earl Morrall and Ted Hendricks, “The Mad Stork.”
There are equally great memories of Cowboys Bob Lilly, Duane Thomas and Chuck Howley.
Lilly having suffered yet another heartbreaking defeat leaving he and the Cowboys still in quest of their first Super Bowl win, threw his helmet high in the air after O’ Brien’s field goal.
The next year would be Lilly and the Cowboys’ moment, another of my favorite Super Bowl games, when Dallas beat the Miami Dolphins.
click to see some Super Bowl V moments
The city of Denver will have a major league sport’s final game/series for the tenth time, with the Broncos’ appearance in next week’s Super Bowl.
The city’s record in this round is (4-5) but they started with 4 straight losses, all by the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
Since the San Francisco 49ers rout win vs the Broncos in the 1989 Super Bowl, Denver teams have won four of five major North American sports’ league finals.
A finals winning streak of four started with the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey league winning it all in 1996. That was their first year in Colorado, after years as the Quebec Nordiques.
The Broncos won back to back Super Bowls following the 1997 and 1998 seasons.
The Avalanche won their second Stanley Cup in 2001.
The loss was in the 2007 World Series when the Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies.
The city of Seattle will be in a major sports league final for the fifth time.
This will be the Seahawks second appearance in the Super Bowl/NFL final. The basketball Seattle SuperSonics, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, were in three finals.
In their previous Super Bowl after the 2005 season the Seahawks lost to the favored, albeit, wild card, Pittsburgh Steelers.
The 1979 Sonics won the only Seattle sports championship. They lost in their other two NBA Finals, and in fact the Oklahoma City Thunder lost in their only NBA finals series.
Both the NFC title game teams, the 49ers and Seahawks had lost in the semi final/ championship game round 30 years ago.
I was watching an old movie on TCM yesterday. Joan Crawford starring in “Mildred Pierce.” It put me in a better place, especially important on a bitter cold day.
Ms. Crawford won her only Academy Award for her performance as the title character in the 1945 film.
Ben Mankiewicz did a good job both introducing and wrapping up the presentation. He revealed Crawford had to audition to get the role. It was her first with Warner Brothers after years with MGM Studios.
The whole cast was great with special kudos to both Jack Carson and Ann Blyth.
Ann, who has talked about her special relationship with Ms. Crawford, plays a spoiled teenage daughter. She was quite convincing.
Later in her career, she would be the kind mom in Hostess cakes ads, allowing the “special treats” for her kids. It is an impressive and on some level scary, “range” exhibited by the classy, talented Ms. Blyth.
Once again, Joe Buck will be the lead television announcer on the Super Bowl. He already called the World Series. He gets chosen for these big events and I do not like it.
In fact, I have to hold back my anger at this injustice. It says something really bad about the state of broadcasting if this man is its king
Joe Buck being on top, shows the power of a dad who was in the same field. His mother then pushed him to get Fox brass to make him the top banana.
Unfortunately this “top banana” is on some very powerful cereal.
The breaking point for me came during the most recent NFC title game, when treating the audience like children, he told us how great a game it was more than once.
Next he actually dared us to turn it off. I shut the sound. Hopefully others will do the same.
The legendary Curt Gowdy once had a similar run of great big game assignments on national television. It was well deserved in Gowdy’s case. This is not so regarding Joe Buck.
Joe Buck
Curt Gowdy
The Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks will meet in the 48th Super Bowl on February 2nd. These two teams were once both in the AFC West. They met only one time in post season competition.
That is “Groundhog’s Day” which evokes repeat action both from the groundhog legend and movie of the same name. These teams will “repeat” a post season clash from 30 years ago in the AFC wild card game.
That game was an obscure one, a Saturday wild card game when there was only one such game in each conference. Seattle won that game at home, beating Denver and its rookie quarterback John Elway.
This season, both Seattle and Denver rode the one seed to a Super Bowl berth. This is just the second time in the last twenty seasons that both conference one seeds advanced to the “Big Game.”
The other time was in 2009 and it also involved current Denver quarterback, Peyton Manning, whose Indianapolis Colts met fellow one seed New Orleans (Saints), in the Super Bowl.
New Orleans won that Super Bowl. Manning, whose team was favored in that one, is with a slightly favored Broncos team in the upcoming Super Bowl.
John Elway
“Have I no Mouth,” currently at Barishnikov Center at 450 West 37th street, is as moving a performance as I have experienced in quite some time. “Brokentalkers” is the sponsor and I strongly suggest you experience the performance.
The real life mother, son and the therapist, who helped them after a family tragedy are on stage together. They talk about and work through their emotions all done in a poignant, humorous at times, and overall uplifting fashion.
The mother is Ann Cannon, her son is Feidlim Cannon, and Erick Keller, who also plays the deceased husband/father Sean in some amazing drama, is the therapist.
No spoiler alert needed as I say it is balloons that keep filling with tension, all done with meaningful, humorous and most of all riveting words and gestures. It never bursts our joy and we truly are better having breathed its emotions.
The performances run through Sunday January 26th. Mondays are dark, weeknight shows commence at 8, Sundays at 3 p.m. Do not miss “Have I No Mouth.” Click for info, tickets
If both the New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers win tomorrow as road underdogs it surely will make some interesting history.
First, it would be the first time in 53 possibilities (AFL/NFL from (1961-1969)–’61 being the first possibility and AFC/NFC from (1970-2013), that in two straight years both title games were won by the road team.
Next, and this is somewhat unofficial and certainly with the possibility of error, but only three previous times in a total of 194 possibilities, (107 World Series in baseball, 79 NFL championship games and throw in the last 8 AFL championship games) have the previous two finals losers met for the championship.
The odds of both New England and San Francisco winning tomorrow are roughly six to one. Who knows what will happen but I promise to check the accuracy of the facts no matter what transpires in the games.
Two actors with roles on innocent television shows of yore, died on the same day. Both Russell Johnson and Dave Madden are worth remembering.
Johnson who died at 89 was most famous as “The Professor” on “Gilligan’s Island.” He often noted the Professor’s simultaneous genius and failure (i.e. inventing amazing things but an inability to fix the hole in the boat for rescue).
I always knew Johnson had more “in the tank” than “The Professor,” clearly he had intensity.
This manifested when he played a man who goes back nearly 100 years, to try and warn that President Abraham Lincoln will be assassinated on an epic “Twilight Zone” episode.
Dave Madden, who died at 82, played “Reuben Kincaid” on the “Partridge Family.”
His character was the agent, who managed the family band, and he supposedly did not like kids. Yet his softness and care for the family did shine through.
Danny Bonaduce, whose mercenary “Danny” character “dueled” with Dave’s “Reuben,” credits Madden for being a father type figure, who helped him a great deal.
Of course those times and shows hid so much of the stark reality that is life. However, I always felt both Johnson and Madden had a certain genuine warmth and that each was not only a success on “innocent” television, but a viable talent elsewhere as well.
Russell Johnson
Dave Madden
Andy B Sports 